


At Night In His Head

by frogy



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: M/M, Piercings, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 14:42:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1270300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogy/pseuds/frogy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since becoming a superhero, Teddy’s developed a keen sense of insomnia.  If the way Billy’s snuffling into the pillow next to him is any indication, Teddy should be worn out enough to pass out.</p><p>But he’s awake.</p><p>So he holds himself as still as possible, not wanting to disturb Billy, and thinks about anything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Night In His Head

**Author's Note:**

> I was going back through my abandoned fics yesterday, and couldn't figure out why I considered this abandoned. It seems pretty done to me. I must have meant for something else to happen, but I can't for the life of me remember what.
> 
> I wrote this two years ago, so canon is out of date, and even then it's kind of hand wavy.
> 
> Unbeta'd. Let me know if you find any typos so I can fix them.

Since becoming a superhero, Teddy’s developed a keen sense of insomnia. He’s read all the tricks online. The lights are out, everything as quiet as he can make it without the ability to turn off the outside. He can’t keep the rest of his life out of his bedroom, since the whole apartment is a garden level studio, kitchen, living-room, and bedroom in a single small rectangle. But he doesn’t watch TV in bed, keeps his laptop exclusively of his couch-folded futon where his lap doubles as his dining room table when he sits down to eat at home. And if the way Billy’s snuffling into the pillow next to him is any indication, Teddy should be worn out enough to pass out.

But he’s awake.

It was the opposite at first. Training is draining, pushing yourself to the edge of your abilities. Crime happens most often at night, under the cloak of darkness, so after being out all night Teddy would find himself slipping under while his math teacher sang about quadratic equations at the front of the room.

Then the occasional criminal became super villains. His mom, gone. His home, his bedroom, everything. There were night trading off the couch and the sleeping bag in the warehouse, the pull-out couch at Billy’s and a spare bedroom at Kate’s (and in one memorable occasion Billy’s bed with Billy in it), and then wherever they could find space for him in the mansion. Even now, with his Avenger-subsidized apartment, Teddy’s heart races at the certainty he’ll fall asleep here and startle awake from his latest nightmare somewhere else.

So he holds himself as still as possible, not wanting to disturb Billy, and thinks about anything else, mentally rewinding the day. 

He and Billy met up at Shake Shack after school. Teddy’s been waiting all winter for it to re-open even though Cassie always argues that the food’s just as good at the one in Times square but Teddy feels like that’s cheating. There’s a matter of pride in waiting in line. The line’s not even too bad mid-afternoon, and if it were Teddy likes the wait. It’s warm in the sun and in Billy’s sight. The winter’s finally melted away to spring, their day’s as high schoolers soon to follow, not a moment too soon. Teddy’s distracted by Billy’s hands and his eyes and his mouth, only half listening to Billy’s complaints about the whole school turning prom-crazy.

He’s not too distracted to ask if Billy wants to go, a moment of them in tuxes spinning around a fantasy dance floor in his head, before Billy laughs him out of that idea. Billy doesn’t want to spend a second longer than he has to with those people. He says it as a fact, none of the anger or malice or hurt that followed him around when they first met. Teddy gives into the desire to kiss him anyway. When Billy laughs and says that’s Teddy’s birthday weekend and he’d rather spend it just the two of them, he says it from the circle of Teddy’s arms.

Two burgers, two orders of fries and two shakes later they’re seated at the tables in the park when Billy asks, no really, what Teddy wants to do for his birthday. Teddy had shrugged, said he didn’t know. 

That’s not really true. He’s turning 18 and Teddy wants another piercing. He’s looked it up online, getting a Prince Albert. He’s imagined it in his head, looking down in the shower and seeing a flash of metal. He could do it himself, use his powers to make himself whatever, however he wants. But he doesn’t. He wants to come by this one genuinely. He’s walked by the piercing place last weekend, Billy busy studying for AP exams leaving Teddy free to wander around his old neighborhood. He couldn’t make himself go in though. The guy, Dylan, was totally cool when Teddy got his ears done. He didn’t talk down to him, or treat him like a kid, even though he had to bring his mom with him to sign the permission slip, even though she stayed the whole time, sitting up front in the waiting area. He’s sure he has no reason to worry about this either, even though it feels so much bigger of a decision. He’s going to be the adult in the daylight that he is at night. He wants this for him, him and Billy.

When he got his ears done, his mom didn’t ask what his sudden desire for a bunch of holes in his body was, and now he wishes he had explained. She had to have known that he could just do them himself. But he wanted something to hold on to, something about himself that was real, that hurt when all his battle scars faded leaving invisible cracks that only Teddy can feel on the inside. It’s too late for that now. Not that he’d tell his mom if he got his junk pierced.

He wants to tell Billy though. He imagines Billy’s eyes dilating at the thought, tongue darting out to wet his lips. They’d have sex in the dying daylight in his apartment, scrambling to get naked and get to it before Billy has to go home (when Billy is allowed to spend the night and when he has to be home by curfew is as cruelly unpredictable as everything else in his life). They’d scuffle on the bed, Billy pinning Teddy down while he’s still tugging off his pants. Teddy could always win a fight that comes down to strength if he wanted to, but he wouldn’t want to, lying on his back with Billy naked and straddling his thighs, hands holding him down by his shoulders. 

'Now stay put,' Billy would admonish him, sliding down and Teddy wouldn’t be able to help the way his hips thrust up, wanting Billy’s mouth. But Billy would just tsk at him, holding down his hips so he can look, doing the same imagining Teddy’s already done. ‘So it’ll be here,’ Billy’d say, putting a finger right on the slit, dragging pre-come down as he runs his finger to just under the head, ‘and here.’

‘Yea,’ Teddy says, nodding in answer and encouragement. 

‘I think I’d like that,’ Billy says.

‘It’s supposed to feel really good.’ Billy would be jerking him off now so it’s not his fault it’s a little scrambled when he says ‘I mean, like, for sex.’

‘Does it now?’ Billy would tease. He’s hard too, cock standing out against the hair down there and Teddy doesn’t know how Billy can be so coy like this, talking and laughing and goading when he’s always desperate in the moment, the need to get of crawling under his skin.

‘I’ve been researching it online,’ he manages to choke out.

‘Mmm,’ Billy says, ‘you’ll have to show me some of this porn sometime.’

‘No, no, it’s not-’ Billy cuts Teddy off with a kiss. It’s not porn. It’s piercing sites and message board forums and sometimes pictures but it’s not just for that. 

‘It’s okay, I know,’ Billy says between kisses, fictional Billy more insightful than real Billy ever is, Billy settling over Teddy so he can wrap his hand around both of them, the beginning of the end.

Teddy would bring Billy with him when he goes for the piercing. Billy wouldn’t wait up front while Teddy gets it done. Instead, Billy’s hand rests proprietary on Teddy’s shoulder while Dylan puts on his rubber gloves, squeezing tighter when the needle goes through, but never looking away. Dylan jokes that maybe Billy wants one too, and Billy says he already has Teddy’s. In this fantasy, Billy’d rather get a tattoo, Teddy imagining tracing the swirls on Billy’s Wiccan costume along his skin.

Billy would be desperate to touch it, to feel it, but Teddy would insist on letting it heal naturally, meaning it’s look, don’t touch for Billy for weeks. At first Billy would tease Teddy about it, about how it’s all give and no take for him. Teddy would tackle Billy to the bed and show him just how much Teddy doesn’t mind giving. But the weeks would wear away at Billy. In Teddy’s fantasy, it’s an Indian summer, too hot long into the September nights, hot and sticky as Billy falls apart with Teddy’s fingers inside of him, all shadows and slick sweat highlighting his face where the lights from outside shiine through the windows. Billy’d beg for more and harder until Teddy’s got three fingers in him and when it’s still not enough, Billy pushing back desperately against Teddy’s hand he uses his powers, lets his hand get bigger and greener, selectively Hulkling out. Billy just takes it wanting more and more and Teddy burrows down in the bed, wanting it all now. Billy, writhing for him again, always. To be eighteen and done with school and an adult instead of this in-between. 

He wants to be taken seriously when he says something during the day, not just at night when his strength is needed to punch through a wall or to fake his way in somewhere, ever the perfect disguise.

He turns over to look at Billy and Billy’s looking back at him.

“Sorry,” Teddy says. He cringes at how loud he sounds in the quiet of the night. “Did I wake you?”

“No, I was just awake.” Billy’s voice is a whisper. It feels like an invite and Teddy moves in closer, curling into him. Billy rolls on his side mirroring Teddy so they’re like two parenthesis holding a thought. Teddy’s arm bridges the distance between them, slung across Billy’s waist. 

They’re too close for Teddy to focus his eyes on Billy’s face. At this distance the whole has to become it’s parts, Teddy focusing on looking into Billy’s eyes.

“What are you thinking about?” Billy asks.

Teddy thinks about saying something. Anything. There’s so much and Billy’s staring right back at him. Teddy looks at Billy’s lips. “Nothing.”

Billy makes a sleepy noise, an “mmm” that burrows under Teddy’s skin, drowning out everything else for the seconds it lasts. He rolls over, holding on to Teddy’s arm settling in to Teddy’s big spoon to his own little. Teddy’s still got a half chub from earlier musings and Billy arches back against it teasingly. “Sleep now, sex in the morning.”

Teddy snuffles into Billy’s hair at the nape of his neck, and hitches his hips forward. He wasn’t thinking of starting anything but if Billy’s awake anyway, Teddy is up for it. 

Billy pushes his shoulder back to shake Teddy off. “Morning,” he says again. And Teddy drops it. Teddy will still want it in the morning.

“Hey,” he says, the thought of morning sparking something else entirely, making him ask “How come sometimes you’re allowed to stay over and sometimes you have to go home by curfew?”

“I’m never allowed to stay over,” Billy says like it’s obvious. “I’ll teleport into my room in the morning and pretend I’ve been there all night.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry,” Billy says. “You’re worth the risk.” Teddy is ready for this not to be a risk. He is ready for this to be their life.


End file.
